


looking into the heart of light

by mardisoir



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Fluff, Getting Together, Les Mis Rare Pairs, M/M, Modern AU, Multi, Polyamis, or threes as the case may be
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-10
Updated: 2018-07-10
Packaged: 2019-05-25 16:42:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14981255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mardisoir/pseuds/mardisoir
Summary: When Combeferre wakes up it takes a minute before he notices anything’s wrong.





	looking into the heart of light

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for the prompt: I was so sleep-deprived after the night shift that I climbed into bed with you (and you just rolled with it).

When Combeferre wakes up it takes a minute before he notices anything’s wrong.

There’s a fresh breeze drifting in through the open window and the bed is haloed in a golden summer morning glow. He’s warm and comfortable and relaxed in a way he hasn’t felt for too long and Combeferre can’t blame himself for basking, just for a moment. He hums happily and stretches and someone makes a disgruntled sound, tightening their grip across his chest.  
  
Combeferre goes very still. His bed doesn’t get the morning sunshine, because his room is on the other side of the apartment. He never sleeps with the window open and he definitely does not wake up with arms wrapped around him anymore. He opens his eyes.

“Morning,” Grantaire says with a grin. He’s sitting up against the pillows, sketchbook balanced on Enjolras’s head.   
  
“Um,” Combeferre says. “Good morning?”

Enjolras is wound around and over the both of them, like a python with more impressive bedhead, somehow managing to be both plastered against Combeferre’s front and drooling on Grantaire’s thigh.  
  
“You came in around four,” Grantaire continues sketching blithely, as though waking up with his boyfriend’s ex in bed with them is perfectly normal. “Long shift?”  
  
“The longest,” Combeferre confirms. “Sorry, I must have been half asleep. I’ll just-”  
  
He starts to extract himself from the tangle of limbs.  
  
“I wouldn’t,” Grantaire warns as Enjolras, sensing movement, growls and traps Combeferre in place by slinging one leg over his waist.  
  
“I forgot how aggressive he is when he’s asleep,” Combeferre says, slightly winded.  
  
“Yeah,” Grantaire smiles fondly. “Good luck with that.”

Enjolras has always been a cuddler. Combeferre hasn’t slept with him, or  _with_  him for that matter, since he and Grantaire got serious over a year ago, but for a while waking up wrapped up in Enjolras had been a regular occurrence.

They’d been a thing on and off since university, living together, working together, falling into bed together whenever the mood took them. It had been a casual arrangement, always. They are very good friends who happen to find one another attractive and were compatible in bed. Neither of them thought any more of it than that.   
  
When Grantaire and Enjolras stopped dancing around one another and started working towards an actual relationship, Combeferre had backed off immediately. Who was he to stand between two of his favourite people and happiness?   
  
He doesn’t regret it. It’s been a privilege to see them both so blissfully content together.  
  
But, he has to admit, it’s difficult sometimes.   
  
Combeferre and Enjolras still live together, their apartment is too nice and the rent too reasonable to give up. Besides, as Enjolras had pointed out, they’re still friends why shouldn’t they live together?  
  
Grantaire, as it happens, is possibly the least possessive or jealous person Combeferre has ever met. He’s never seemed remotely bothered that they were involved or that they still share a home.   
  
“I’m just happy to be here,” Grantaire jokes often, usually when Enjolras is using him as a pillow while they watch a film or when Combeferre enlists him to chop things in the kitchen while they cook together.   
  
And he is happy, that’s the thing. They both are.   
  
The two of them spend as much time as possible at Combeferre and Enjolras’s place, more for practicality than anything. It gets cramped with Enjolras, Grantaire  _and_  Joly, Bossuet and Musichetta all sharing one living space.   
  
They never exclude Combeferre, although he tries his best to give them time to themselves, spends plenty of weekends at Courfeyrac and Jehan’s place or out with Bahorel and Feuilly.   
  
Enjolras and Grantaire don’t seem to notice when he does crash their alone time, or if they do they don’t seem mind. They eat breakfast together, watch films together, invite him out on what should surely be private dates to galleries and lectures and dinners.

He enjoys their company enormously. Both of them.   
  
It’s not that Grantaire’s a different person now, but he’s more  _himself_  than Combeferre had known him to be in the past. He drinks less, laughs often, is more likely to chime in with a joke than a sarcastic remark. He’s happier.   
  
Combeferre feels like they were friends before, certainly, but they’re close now. They talk. They know each other, trust each other.   
  
It’s a little bit awkward, developing a crush on a friend right as they start a relationship with your ex.  
  
The thing with Enjolras had happened so easily, Combeferre will readily admit that he’d taken it for granted. He hadn’t thought of it as a loss when it ended. After all, he wasn’t really losing anything, was he? Enjolras was still one of his best friends. They still saw each other all the time, still talked, still ran the ABC together.   
  
It was only sex, it shouldn’t have been a big deal.  
  
Combeferre thinks he’ll probably never let himself live down the fact that he didn’t notice he was in love with Enjolras until after they stopped sleeping together.

“You’re both too loud,” Enjolras mutters against Grantaire’s leg. “It’s too early. Why is there noise and earliness and no coffee.”  
  
Grantaire and Combeferre share an amused glance.  
  
“I would have made you coffee, darling, sweetheart, light of my life,” Grantaire says, setting his sketchbook aside, “but when I tried to get up you refused to let me go.”  
  
“Ugh,” Enjolras groans, wiping his face against Grantaire’s boxers and getting a look that is equal parts disgust and adoration in response. “Fine, I release you. Go make coffee.” Enjolras wriggles around until Grantaire is freed from his grasp.

Combeferre tries to take the opportunity to escape but is instantly thwarted.  
  
“Where do you think you’re going?” Enjolras mumbles, flopping onto Combeferre and pinning him on his back against the mattress.   
  
“Ah, to my own bed? Or possibly the shower?”  
  
Anywhere he can get some privacy, if he’s honest. Combeferre’s not been a monk in the months since he and Enjolras parted ways, but lately he’s been too busy or too tired or too...  _preoccupied_  to date anyone, and he’s only human.

Courfeyrac claims he’s been wallowing and that’s why he hasn’t managed to meet anyone. Combeferre prefers to think of it as quietly mourning what could have been, but when he’d said so Jehan had winced and proclaimed him too morose for even their tastes, at which point Combeferre had resolved to move on and put this whole mess behind him.  
  
He’d been doing pretty well, he thinks, until his traitor subconscious somehow convinced him to climb into bed with the objects of his unwelcome affections.  
  
“Stay,” Enjolras says, “I’ve missed this.”  
  
“What?” Combeferre asks, mind blank except for how he can’t stop cataloguing all the places that Enjolras’s bare skin is pressed against his own.

Combeferre’s scrubs are abandoned on the floor of the bedroom. Enjolras is just in his underwear and one of Grantaire’s threadbare t-shirts. It’s a lot of skin.  
  
Enjolras sighs and props his chin on Combeferre’s chest, his expression serious.  
  
“R thinks subtlety is the best way to go but it took us five years to get together so his opinion doesn’t count. Courfeyrac just laughed when I talked to him and Jehan said - well actually Jehan laughed too and quoted something that was either Federico García Lorca or Jane Austen.”  
  
“What exactly are you saying?” Combeferre asks, because he honestly isn’t sure and if he’s wrong…  
  
“Did you seriously start The Talk without me?” Grantaire asks, coming back into the room with three mugs of coffee. “I can’t believe you.”  
  
“Last time you tried to bring it up we got derailed into discussing Sour Grapes for two hours,” Enjolras points out, not moving from where he’s still sprawled over Combeferre.  
  
“It’s a good documentary!” Grantaire sets the mugs down on the bedside table and slumps onto the bed beside them, propping his head up on his hand.  
  
Combeferre remembers that conversation, it had only been a few weeks ago. They’d shared a lazy dinner and stayed up late talking about it, all three of them ending up curled together on the couch so they could watch the documentary on Enjolras’s laptop.   
  
Combeferre had excused himself to go to bed when he caught himself focusing too intently on the way Grantaire’s thumb was gently rubbing against the soft curve of Enjolras’s neck.

“What are we talking about?” Combeferre asks, suddenly realising that his right hand has drifted of its own accord to Enjolras’s hip, his fingers sneaking beneath the hem of his shirt.

“We want to date you,” Enjolras says bluntly.  
  
“Babe,” Grantaire sighs, “what happened to easing into it?”  
  
Combeferre’s mouth twitches and Enjolras snorts.  
  
“Oh my god, you are both the worst.” Grantaire fights a laugh, leaning forward to press his forehead against Combeferre’s shoulder.   
  
“Seriously though,” Enjolras continues. “We’ve been dropping hints for months now. You’ve been with us on nearly every date we’ve had since April, except when you’ve been working or busy, and you’ve spent time with both of us separately too.”  
  
That’s true. Combeferre hadn’t thought about it that way, but he has spent a considerable amount of time with them both.  
  
“We don’t want to pressure you,” Grantaire says, “which is why we shouldn’t really be having this conversation half naked while you’re trapped under Enjolras. But I mean, we woke up in bed with you. I’m taking it as a sign.”  
  
Combeferre laughs.  
  
“Honestly though, if you’re not into it or you’re not into m- uh, one of us,” he corrects when Enjolras kicks him in the calf. “That’s totally cool. Nothing has to change. But, we do like you. And we think you like us too.”  
  
“He does,” Enjolras says confidently. “Don’t you?” he adds, slightly less confidently.  
  
Combeferre looks between them both. “You’re serious?”  
  
“Yes,” Grantaire says and Enjolras rolls his eyes.  
  
“Obviously.”  
  
“Yes,” Combeferre says. “I like you both too. Obviously.”  
  
Grantaire beams and Enjolras smiles, quietly smug.   
  
“Can I kiss you then?” Grantaire asks. “Only I’ve been thinking about it since, like, December, so.”  
  
Combeferre has been thinking about kissing Grantaire at least as long, if not longer. He nods.   
  
Grantaire tastes like coffee and his cheeks are scratchy with stubble when Combeferre reaches up to cup his face in his hand. It’s perfect.  
  
“My turn,” Enjolras says, voice warm with pleasure when they break apart.  
  
By the time they manage to pull themselves away from each other, the coffees on the bedside table have long since gone cold.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm working on cross-posting some tumblr ficlets here for archival purposes, this is one of the first! Seemed appropriate since it's Rare Pair Week. Title from T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land because of course it is.
> 
> [Sour Grapes.](http://www.sourgrapesfilm.com/about/)


End file.
